Not the Origin, But the Source
by Saucery
Summary: Castiel masters the art of obliviousness. Dean masters the art of displacement. A sequel to "Wear Thy Form," which can be found in my profile.


**NOT THE ORIGIN, BUT THE SOURCE**

A sequel to _Wear Thy Form_.

* * *

><p>"You know," says Sam, while they're waiting for Castiel to come back from the - the <em>ladies'<em> room, and Dean is _not _thinking about that, "I've always wanted a sister."

Dean chokes on his beer. "_What_?"

"I mean - not a _nun_, that's not what I - "

"I seriously fucking hope not," Dean growls, and Sam _gapes_ at him.

"You - since when have you ever _discouraged_ me when it came to women?"

"Since Castiel became one of 'em." Dean snags the plate of fries sitting across from him on the table; that's Cas's plate, with the fries tangled in a sort of salty, oily nest around the hollow where the burger _used_ to be. Castiel still likes his - her - junk food, obviously.

"I didn't mean it that way, anyway. Just - having her along is kind of. It's _nice_."

"Nice." Dean steals one of Castiel's fries and pops it into his mouth. "Really?"

"Really. It feels like a... a family, like it's supposed to be."

"Why? Because when Dad was around, there were always three of us?" Dean shakes his head. "Dad never actually stuck around for the easy jobs, and, let's face it, most of the jobs _were_ easy jobs - "

"That's not what I'm saying, and you know it." Sam sits back and gets that faraway look in his eyes, like he sometimes does when he's thinking about Mom or Jess or Jo or any of the women they've been lucky enough to have - and fucking _damned_ enough to lose. "Castiel's - he's kicking ass with us, and making his weirdly awesome jokes that he doesn't even _know_ are jokes, and - the fact that he's a woman just makes him like the sister we never had, you know?" Then, as if realizing what he's just said, Sam scrunches up his nose. "Argh, that sounds - it sounds like Cas is a_transsexual_ - "

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," Dean says, because there _isn't_, and then Sam's _looking_ at him again, and then they're laughing.

Sam is probably more than a little drunk, and -

No, Dean _doesn't_ know. About - about Castiel being _family_. He'd felt like family _before_, but now - okay, so maybe Dean's some kind of misogynistic bastard, but he _can't_ think about Cas as an honorary third brother, or - or non-gendered sibling, anymore. He _can't_.

And maybe, just maybe, he'd never actually thought of Cas as family, at all.

Which begs the question - given that he _had_ been thinking about Cas a whole damn lot - what _had_ he been thinking of Castiel as?

A friend? That doesn't seem real enough. An ally? Well, yeah, _technically_, but that doesn't explain Dean's - continuing - urge to feed Castiel increasingly unhealthy foods and teach him about porn and alcohol and - and women. God, is he going to have to teach the new Castiel about_men_? About staying the hell _away_ from them, because obviously, all men are dogs with penises for brains?

Jesus, maybe Cas _is_ like a sister. Because - as he catches sight of Castiel emerging from the ladies' room only to be accosted by this stupid, letterman-wearing freaking high school _jock_ - he feels an uncontrollable urge to hamstring the motherfucker. And maybe shove his smug, hungry face into a toilet bowl. Full of broken glass.

He gets up.

"'scuse me," he says - _grits_ - and maybe there's something in his voice, because Sam's eyes go _wide_, and he - stops laughing.

Just like that.

"Hey," says Sam. "He's only a kid. Don't - "

Don't what?

Dean walks up to Castiel and puts his hands in his pockets and just sort of stands there with his legs apart, all relaxed and easy-like, and says: "Yo, Cas."

"Dean," says Castiel, sounding goddamn _relieved_, like -

Like maybe he knows this guy was _hitting_ on him - her - _damn_ it - "You okay?"

"This gentleman is kindly and repeatedly offering me a, ah, 'ride', but I am trying to convince him that I have already secured sufficient transportation."

"Trust me, buddy," says Dean, turning to the jock and pasting on a grin that's more shark than human. "She's too much for you."

"She looks just _enough_ to me," the guy smirks, and obviously - _obviously_ - checks Castiel out.

Dean - doesn't punch him in the face. (See, Sammy? I'm a _good_ boy.) He adds a little more shark to his grin, and says: "Dude, she can shatter_windows_ with her _voice_."

"So she's a screamer, huh?" The jackass actually _reaches out to touch Cas's hair_, and suddenly - before Dean even knows what's _happening_ - the guy's slammed against the counter, and Dean's - Dean still hasn't punched him in the face.

He _is_ looming, though. And possibly looking a tad homicidal, because the jock goes several shades paler than the white letter _on_ his jacket.

"_Dean_," says Castiel, sounding kind of horrified, and Dean -

Dean lets the kid go.

He scrambles away from them.

"Perhaps I was mistaken," says Castiel, eventually, into the pin-drop silence that's suddenly pervading the tiny, dinky diner. Sam's still sitting at their table, with his mouth hanging open. He looks like a fish. "I - I was not aware that I was talking to a minor demon."

Huh? "That... wasn't a demon."

"Then why," Castiel enunciates, slowly, "did you brutalize him?"

"I didn't - that wasn't _brutalizing_, okay? I just - " _thought he was going to despoil you_. Which - the thought _alone_ is crazy, so it's not like he can voice it out _loud_. "He was hitting on you," he says, bluntly.

"He was _not_ hitting me!" Castiel is looking more and more pissed off, and that - that _expression_, on a face with a stern, full mouth and a pair of angry, fucking _serious_ brown eyes - "He was merely offering assistance!"

Seriously? So Cas _hadn't_ figured out that he - she - was being hit on? "Well, fuck," Dean mutters, because _some_ things? Surviving the Apocalypse does _not_ prepare you for. Up to and including defending the virtue of a clueless - and cluelessly _indignant_ - angel.

"Explain this to me, Dean," says Cas, like _Dean's_ done something wrong, and, yeah, that's the _outside_ of enough.

"Now, you listen here," he says, and tries not to notice that he sounds like his _Dad_. Hell, maybe Castiel's more of a _daughter_ than a sister. "When a man offers you 'assistance'? While staring at your chest? He means to do you harm."

"What kind of harm?" Is that _skepticism_?

"The sexual kind," Dean says, and -

Castiel _freezes_. His - _her_ eyes stretch in ridiculous, dawning comprehension, and she looks so much like a cartoon character that Dean almost expects a light-bulb to pop up over her head. "Oh," says Castiel, quietly, and - and Dean does _not_ think that the exhalation sounds breathy or even remotely intimate. Or, or _soft_.

He doesn't.

They stand there awkwardly, for a moment, until Sam apparently decides he's had enough of watching them make fools out of themselves and heads towards them.

"So, _that's_ ruined dinner," he says, cheerfully, and claps Dean a little too hard on the back. "Let's just pay and get out of here, all right? Before they _throw_ us out," and, yeah, there's this meaty guy poking his head out of the kitchen, and he looks just the right sort of menacing for an owner (or maybe manager) that has a bunch of trouble-makers on his premises.

"Right," says Dean, and they beat a hasty retreat.

Castiel grabs a couple fries as they pass their table, and just - just _shoves_ them in her mouth.

Dean's never seen a woman _eat_ that way, and it should be unattractive or maybe just horrifying, but Dean knows that it's probably part of the reason that fucking jock had been attracted to her. There's an _innocence_ to her, a kind of unguarded - pure-hearted - _something_, anyway.

Sam grabs his arm before they get into the Impala. Cas is already inside, dutifully seat-belting herself.

"What the _hell_ was that about?" Sam hisses. "Please tell me you know what that was about."

"Nothing," Dean says, and pulls his arm free.

"No, it _wasn't_ nothing. You know what it was?"

"If you know, then why're you asking me?"

"_That_," says Sam, "was an example of you being an excellent primate."

Dean... blinks. And, really, he should be _used_ to the fact that Sam starts speaking like a nerd when he's angry, but - "What?"

"If you'd been any _more_ of a primate, you'd have pulled a King Kong and climbed the nearest skyscraper with _Castiel_ in your _fist_."

Is. Is Sammy _high_? Where the hell did all the monkeys come from?

"And if you don't know what I mean by that, then you're an even bigger idiot than I give you credit for."

Dean gapes at him.

Sam narrows his _eyes_, and looks - well, something between freaked out and cheesed _off_, and the only other times Dean's ever seen him look like that were when Dean was about to make some sort of colossal, possibly fatal mistake. "Sam - "

"Shut. Up," he says, and gets in the car.

Great.

The drive to Werewolfville continues, but it's strained and silent, now, because Sam keeps clenching his jaw and looking out the window, and - and Castiel keeps darting Dean these _glances_, in the rear-view mirror, that manage to be both unreadable and distracting.

Sure, having a sister is _nice_. Great observation, there, Sam.

Having a sister is _awful_.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>fin?<strong>  
><strong>Uh. I might write the odd follow-up ficlet, I guess?  
>Or maybe a series of ficlets?<br>Please review!


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